It's good to hear a band grow. Like Allo Darlin's first effort, Europe is full of catchy pop songs, and Elizabeth Morris's vocals are still heart-tuggingly direct and intimate. But her lyrics have improved greatly since that 2010 debut, with fewer of the cloying pop-culture references and indie-pop platitudes. On album stand-outs like "Capricornia" and "Tallulah," her words nail the tricky balance between personal and universal. There's enough specific detail to forge their own identity and still resonate with anybody who's ever missed the people and places they grew up with, or realized that there's a "best by" date to youthful abandon. (Or maybe I'm just especially susceptible to nostalgic references to the year 1998.) Morris also makes the ukulele work, and not as some Urban Outfitters store come to musical life. The uke is the only instrument on "Tallulah," but it's essentially background, a minimalist complement to Morris's voice and words, which are so tender and aching that they make you want to immediately go hug something. Like the Go-Betweens or the Field Mice, Europe is top-notch indie-pop, with upbeat music and literate lyrics coated in a wistfulness that can be debilitating if you indulge in it too often.

Various Artists | Casual Victim Pile: Austin 2010 The notion that regional musical flavors exist independently in American cities is quickly becoming an archaic truism, seeing as how the world really is a stage these days, at least in the digital sense.

Avi Buffalo | Avi Buffalo Look, I get it: the last thing we need right now is yet another band who can be described as “sun-baked,” “reverb-soaked,” or even just “psychedelic.” But Avi Buffalo (I know! An animal name to boot!) are worth your attention for a few reasons.

Ital | Hive Mind If there was a broken-record knock against electronic music in the last decade, it's that it all sounded the same.

Die Antwoord | Ten$ion Moreso than any "controversially-lipped" chanteuse (to borrow from one of Lana Del Rey's many observers), South African rap/rave/meme/satire/knuckleheads Die Antwoord beg the question:"Is that all there is?"

Cotton Mather | Kontiki [Deluxe Edition] When it was released in 1997, Cotton Mather's sophomore album racked up glowing critical huzzahs across the pond (not to mention big-ups from Oasis), yet dudded here in the States.

YO LA TENGO | FADE | January 17, 2013 Fade starts with James McNew and Ira Kaplan harmonizing on the line "sometimes the good things fade."

ALLO DARLIN' | EUROPE | April 10, 2012 It's good to hear a band grow. Like Allo Darlin's first effort, Europe is full of catchy pop songs, and Elizabeth Morris's vocals are still heart-tuggingly direct and intimate.

CEREMONY | ZOO | March 13, 2012 Ceremony aren't as intellectual or dryly hilarious as Wire and don't attempt a comparable stylistic variety, but the raucous Zoo is a fine tribute to Wire's heavier side, alternating between powerful, lumbering riffs and manic splatters of guitar noise.

THE MAGNETIC FIELDS | LOVE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA | February 28, 2012 The Magnetic Fields' last three albums all eschewed the synthesizers that typified their sound in the '90s, but Fields main man Stephin Merritt makes up for it on Love at the Bottom of the Sea, where he deploys at least 10 albums' worth of synths in a brisk 35 minutes.

GUIDED BY VOICES | LET'S GO EAT THE FACTORY | January 11, 2012 The GBV name on Let's Go Eat the Factory' s label indicates two things to those fans: this is the first record to feature the "classic" Bee Thousand/Alien Lanes line-up since 1996, and this is the first Pollard album to deserve the GBV moniker since the break-up.